I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

— Terry Pratchett

.. we were trained to meet any new situation by reorganising; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illuson of progress

— Petronius (210 BC)

The time we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions that we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit fills up what remains

— Proust

So just as it is not the desire to become famous but the habit of being laborious that enables us to produce a finished work, so it is not the activity of the present moment but wise reflexions from the past that help us to safeguard the future

— Proust "Within the Budding Grove"

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.